Original spin on a long overlooked genre.

Rating: 8/10 (6 November 2002)

A major, and welcome, change in direction for the Boyle/McDonald team, and an original (or as original as horror gets these days) spin on a genre well overdue a resurrection - the zombie movie. Having read Danny Boyle commenting that it wasn't a zombie, or indeed a horror, genre flick I have to say I disagree - maybe he thought branding it as such might affect his audience or something. Anyway, 28 Days Later has to be one of the most genuinely grim horror films I've seen for years. While it does wear some of it's influences on its sleeve it is more informed by them than driven to emulate them - think the sense of screaming isolation and the all encompassing feeling of dread pervading Romeros Trilogy of the Dead and couple that with one of the finest horror creations for a long time, the Infected. I'm not one to be easily disturbed by a film but there are some images and scenes that kept me awake at night after viewing. The film is carried along by some great performances by the cast, none more so than Naomie Harris who shows a great combination of vulnerability and rock-hard determination. Cillian Murphy too is great, and you really share in his horror and confusion at the world he has woken to. The star of the show, however, is the concept itself and the Infected at the centre of it. You're NEVER quite sure just how far the rage has spread and are left to think about it without any real conclusions being made, which just adds to the atmosphere of isolation, terror and desperation throughout the piece. Genuinely unsettling, at times brutally violent but completely compulsive viewing.